Prologue, Part II

Hi, All.

Last month, I posted Part I of the Prologue to my novel in progress. Here’s Part II:

Pell College had been transforming doe-eyed girls into proud, confident women ever since 1823. “Longer than Smith, Wellesley, and Mount Holyoke,” its rah-rah alumnae were quick to note. Most agreed their beloved alma matter would never “pull a Radcliffe” and go coed. The idea was unthinkable.

Among generations of Pell women, Abigail Channing reigned as a legend. She donated her entire collection of twentieth-century art to the school. The works included paintings by Picasso, Modigliani, Monet, and Matisse among other greats. Now they were displayed in a room named after her son on the ground floor of Channing House.

She also endowed Pell with enough money to maintain the three-story museum into perpetuity. There was only one stipulation: nothing in the John H. Channing Room could be moved, sold, or travel on exhibition. Otherwise the entire collection was to be auctioned by Sotheby’s and all proceeds donated to Brown University, her late husband’s alma mater.

The college honored Abigail’s wishes, and from one class to the next, students took sanctuary at Channing. The undergraduates whiled away the hours among art exhibits on the first two floors. Or they retreated to the third floor library, studied at long, antique tables, and found inspiration in the views of Newport’s historic mansions across Easton Bay.

Maybe it was by accident. Maybe by unspoken consent. Channing was free from the usual campus distractions: booze, gossip, and the horny college boys who were always skulking through dormitories and sexiling aggrieved roommates. The museum belonged to the women of Pell, who regarded it as their private jewel.

A vulnerable jewel.

There were no cameras, no detection devices, no elaborate bolts locking paintings to plaster walls. The doors and windows kept out the breeze—but they were useless against thieves with a plan. And the security guards were a collection of favorite grandpas, anything but menacing.

The ground floor was much as it had always been. High ceilings. Herringbone floors. There was a large sitting room to the left, the John H. Channing Room to the right, and a mahogany staircase in the rear of the foyer where a wooden, organ grinder’s monkey sat vigil on the rickety old bannister.

Generations of Pell women touched the monkey’s fez for good luck as they glided the sweeping stairs. And if you happened to say, “Cheeky monkey,” everybody on campus knew exactly where you meant.